Solebox - Nike Lunar Roam
Director: ANNA VAN DER VELDE // Cinematographer: DENNIS BERGANDE
In order to launch a new Nike shoe - the Lunar Roam, Nike collaborated with Solebox to produce a campaign film. The campaign film was distributed online and featured at the launch event.
Director, Anna van der Velde, and I have collaborated on projects before and have a shared love for working with VFX and CGI so when she approached me with this project I was quick to join.
The project was shot with a selection of cameras, the bulk of the material was shot with the Alexa 35, using Alexa LogC4, while some motion control shots used an Alexa Mini shooting LogC3, due to weight restrictions of the robotic arm. This material was colour managed into LogC4 to have a common working space. The shots were then augmented with CGI or cut together with completely computer generated shots - this material was also colour managed to LogC4.
The project features two similar ‘worlds’ the white studio environment, and the moon environment where the talent are transported through. Both feature a reduced colour palette, however the studio environment featured a softer, more even lighting setup.
The focus of the films was to guarantee a consistent looking product in both environments, and to create subtle differences in the earthy tones of the costumes. This meant a lot of masking, qualifying and separating of different clothing elements. The DOP and VFX artist, Charly Dennis Bergande, was also in attendance for the grading session, so when I required a matte pass for a background or foreground element, I was able to quickly request and receive. Early versions of the grade contained so many grey tones that film began to look too much like a Black and White grading, so we also spend a considerable amount of time adding subtle teal tones to different areas of the image.
The project was a great opportunity to flex some basic compositing and clean up skills in the grade and the end result is a film with reserved, earthy characters in a cold and clean sci-fi environment that borders on lifelessness.